


Six Christmases Santana and Brittany Spend Together + One New Year's Eve

by satonawall



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-02-27 17:18:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2700980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satonawall/pseuds/satonawall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of loosely related drabbles of Brittany and Santana spending the holidays together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not really canon-compliant after S2; I cherrypicked some stuff I liked and ignored a lot (especially to the tune of, "Break-up, what break-up?").

They waved goodbye to Tina and Mike and got into Santana’s car, Brittany still jumping a little from the excitement of shooting the Christmas special.

“We’re going to be on TV!” she said, sounding even more cheerful than usually.

Santana bit her lip. She’d been on TV enough during the congressional campaign to feel like she never wanted to so much as see her own picture ever again, but then again, it was a completely different thing to dance with her girlfriend on TV than-

“Yeah,” she said. “We’re going to be on TV.”

“It sucks that you didn’t get a song.”

Santana shook her head as she started the car. “I didn’t really even want one.”

“I always think mine is a duet,” Brittany said. “It’s so obviously about us.”

Santana couldn’t really laugh while reversing out of the parking spot, but once she was on the road, she glanced at Brittany. “It’s a nice song, but it’s about hooking up with a guy you’ve been running into all year on Christmas Day. I don’t really get how that has anything to do with us.”

“Sweet lady kisses are a lot nicer on Christmas Day than when you get them occasionally before it’s really anything,” Brittany said, and okay, Santana could see her point.

“Yeah,” she said. “They are.”

Brittany beamed at her, and for a while, they drove on in silence.

“About that, actually,” Santana said after a moment, “I’ve been meaning to ask- What are you doing for Christmas?”

“You already know,” Brittany said. “I’ll be at home making sure that Lord Tubbington doesn’t try to harass any little elves. My sister has been hoping for the Barbie that has the dog, and I don’t want him ruining her chances.”

Santana smiled. “I remember, you told me that. I meant more like- Do you want to meet up? It seems like something girlfriends do if they live just a few streets away from each other.”

Brittany blinked. “Of course we’ll see each other. We always spend the afternoon after lunch but before dinner together. And sometimes I even come over after dinner because your mum’s turkey is made of delicious rainbows and she always makes way too much of it.”

Santana frowned, but that was just for a moment.

“You’re right,” she said. “Why didn’t I ever realise how girlfriend-y that was?”

Brittany didn’t say anything, which was good because Santana knew the answer to her own question all too well.

“It will be different this year, though,” Brittany said. “This year we’ll be actual girlfriends, and making out with you on my bed right under the mistletoe is nicer with feelings.”

Santana let out a short laugh, hoping she wasn’t driving so that she could reach out to grasp at Brittany’s hand.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, it’s so much better with feelings.”


	2. Chapter 2

It was not exactly the Christmas Santana had been preparing herself for ever since Brittany told her she wasn’t going to graduate with Santana. That Christmas would have happened in Lima where Santana would have flown to see her family and Brittany, and they would have met up between meals on Christmas Day like always and definitely after, too. Santana was pretty sure her mother always chose such a large turkey on purpose anyway.

This one, though, this wasn’t half bad either. Sure, she’d never in a million years expected to be roommates, let along get along, at least to some extent, with Kurt and Rachel, and she’d definitely never expected that Brittany would go to MIT before she even had the chance to get her high school diploma, but Santana wasn’t exactly going to complain about either one of those things. For one, Kurt had gone back to Lima the second his Christmas holiday began (Santana could smell the lovesickness and the extent of Kurt’s missing Blaine; it was kind of gross although sweet), and Rachel had gone on a Christmas cruise with her parents (Santana felt pre-emptively sorry for the whole cruise ship), so there was no one but Santana who’d stay in the loft. And second of all, while she missed her parents a little, she wasn’t going to pass on the chance to spend a week with Brittany with no one else in sight. And anyway, Thanksgiving had been just a month earlier and her parents would probably come to New York for the winter holiday.

Besides, when Santana had asked if the arrangement was okay with her parents, they’d given her the world’s least subtle wink, which besides tacit approval probably meant a lot of things Santana preferred not to think about, but none of which were disappointment.

Of course, two broke college kids in New York couldn’t have quite the same Christmas they’d been used to, but as Santana held the box of decorations for Brittany while Brittany carefully wrapped Kurt’s ridiculous modern art statue in tinsel, she couldn’t really help thinking that in some ways variety really was the spice of life.

“It’s a pity we can’t hammer nails into it,” Brittany said as she finished with the tinsel. “Lord Tubbington’s heirloom baubles would look great with the silver.”

Santana looked down at the box. Lord Tubbington’s baubles looked a lot better than the name Brittany had given them would imply; they did actually seem like someone’s antique baubles even though Santana was pretty sure they were just plastic.

“We could hang them from the ceiling,” she suggested. “Rachel hammered some nails into it to hang a curtain from when she thought she needed privacy to practice for her dance class. I knew there was a reason I haven’t bothered blackmailing her into pulling them out yet.”

Brittany held the chair in place while Santana hung the baubles.

“They look a little sad,” she said as they were done and were checking out their work. “They’re pretty far away from each other.”

“They’ve always been divas,” Brittany said. “I bet every one of them is talking to the ceiling and telling it all about how the others were always hogging space in the storage box. Let them be a little apart, it’ll do them good.”

Santana chuckled. “That’s fine by me.”

Neither of them was not really much of a cook, and they were fairly sure they couldn’t have rivalled Santana’s mother’s turkey, so it had seemed logical to just order a bunch of take-out anyway since they weren’t going to get good Christmas food done anyway.

It wasn’t like Santana really gave that much thought to the Chinese food she was pushing into her mouth when Brittany’s legs were touching hers where Brittany was leaning against the armrest on the other end of the sofa, their legs filling the space in the middle.

“I’ve missed this,” Brittany said as she finished off the spring rolls and moved on to the fried vegetable rice.

“I’ve missed you, too.”

“I don’t mean that.” Brittany bit her lip. “I mean, of course I’ve missed you, I love you and I want to always walk with our pinkies linked, but I’ve missed just being with you. When you visited the last time we were just-“

Santana cracked a smile. Aside from seeing the classroom where Brittany spent most of her time, she’d mostly seen Brittany’s bed.

“I can see what you mean.” She pressed her foot gently against Brittany’s thigh. “I’ve missed this too.”

“I have no one like you at college,” Brittany said, her bottom lip protruding just the tiniest bit. “Not that I’d want to, because I want you and you’re unique like a unicorn, but-“

Santana reached out to squeeze at her ankle. As far as soothing gestures went, it wasn’t her best, but it was the best she could do without completely jostling all the open food containers they had on the sofa.

“It’s just temporary,” she reminded Brittany. “Remember, we talked about this? Whoever finishes college first moves. And then we’ll be together every day again.”

Brittany nodded, and she seemed happier as she chewed on her food.

The good thing about having your Christmas meal out of take-out boxes was that clean-up was a lot easier.

“Do you want to do the Christmas films before presents?” Santana asked as she held the bin bag open for Brittany to dump all the empty containers into.

Their parents had sent their presents straight to New York ahead of time, and Brittany had suggested that since Santa had obviously had problems with the time-space continuum and thought they still lived in pre-Reformation Europe, they could try to save him some embarrassment by opening the presents on the first evening of Brittany’s stay. Santana had had nothing against that; she already pretty much knew what she was getting from pretty much anyone except Brittany and Brittany’s parents (who’d always got her some type of chocolate, so that was unlikely to be a great mystery), and it didn’t much matter to her if she’d get her hands on her new blender on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. If anything, the quicker the better.

“Presents. I think if we wait any longer the elves might tell Santa we thought something was off.”

“Presents it is then.”

They started from their parents’ presents. Santana did in fact unwrap a new blender, and some books and sweets, from her parents, and Brittany got vouchers for return bus tickets from Cambridge to New York for a date of her choosing. Brittany’s parents gave Brittany a desk globe and woollen socks that Brittany’s mother had knit herself, and Santana chocolate and another pair of socks.

“They match,” Brittany said as they pulled them on and compared, pointing at the socks.

She was right; Santana’s were mostly black with knit braids and some red and yellow details, Brittany’s red and yellow with some black details.

Santana smiled. Even the smallest gestures of familial approval still managed to make her inexplicably happy.

“Yours now,” she said, nudging her present towards Brittany. “It’s not much, coming to see you the last time kind of drained any extra I had, but…”

“It’s the best present ever,” Brittany said before tearing the wrapping and pulling out her gift.

It was a t-shirt, one of those kind of shapeless ones that Santana had bought from a second-hand shop she’d made Kurt take her to, and then she’d “borrowed” his craft supplies to stencil text onto it, been caught by him and watched as he did it for her muttering something about amateurs.

Brittany stared at the text (“My girlfriend’s dating a genius” with a little heart and the pi symbol that Kurt had suggested), and Santana was almost getting worried until Brittany threw her arms around Santana’s shoulders and hugged her close, the t-shirt getting crushed and probably bent at least a little out of shape between them.

“Thank you,” Brittany muttered against her shoulder before raising her head to give Santana a messy, shaky, absolutely amazing kiss. “I’ll wear it every day.”

“Sorry the shirt’s so crappy, I kind of thought you’d only wear it to like pyjama parties or to sleep in.”

“It’s not,” Brittany said, but her eyes still looked kind of glassy so Santana wasn’t quite sure if she could trust Brittany’s judgement.

“Well, if there’s anyone who can pull off a too large novelty t-shirt with a dorky text, it’s definitely you.”

“Mercedes probably,” Brittany said, pursing her lips. “But me too.”

Santana nodded in acknowledgement as she began unwrapping hers. It was kind of heavy, but not that large, and Brittany had insisted on keeping it upright, and it _was_ Brittany, so Santana wasn’t really surprised to eventually reveal a pickle jar filled with-“

“Those are pebbles from around the trees at your dorms, aren’t they?” she said, tracing her finger along the glass on the level of the first layer.

“Yep.” Brittany leaned closer to her again.

“And that looks like breadcrumbs.”

“I crumbled them myself,” Brittany said proudly. “But they were breadsticks before I did that. Although the post did a good job starting. Mum didn’t pack them as well as she thought.”

“Bread- They’re from Breadstix?”

Brittany nodded. “I tried putting them in whole but they just looked weird.”

Santana looked at the lowest level. It looked like dirt, just your regular garden variety (no pun intended, but it was a good one even if she said it herself) dirt, but she’d known Brittany for years and even if she hadn’t, the other layers and the figure of a dancer surrounded by rainbow glitter on the top told her all she needed to know.

“Is that from your family’s house or mine?”

“Yours,” Brittany said. “We first kissed at your house, and your mum agreed that you’d like it when I asked if she would mind sending me some.”

Santana ran her thumb along the glass again, just looking at the jar.

“I love it,” she said. “It’s so… you. No one else could have made this for me.”

“No,” Brittany said. “They couldn’t have.”

Carefully, Santana settled the jar on the floor a little distance away from them next to the blender.

“I’m going to put it on my desk,” she said. “And anytime someone comes over and asks what it is I’m going to tell them all about you until they’re discreetly snoring into their palms.”

They spent the rest of the evening cuddling on the sofa and watching Christmas films, and Brittany eventually fell asleep against Santana’s shoulders. Santana wasn’t quite strong enough to carry her to bed without waking her, but as Brittany sleepily pulled her onto the bed, Santana had just the time to think that different definitely was great before Brittany kissed her again.


	3. Chapter 3

“What did you say you labelled that box as?” Santana yelled into the kitchen.

Of course, the kitchen was maybe ten feet away at best; their apartment was practically a shoebox, they were a college student and a dance instructor in New York City, so what else could it have been? Brittany probably would have heard her if she’d just said it in a normal voice. Then again, Brittany was currently very engrossed in her mashed potatoes, so she probably wasn’t listening for Santana.

“Dog-print sweaters,” Brittany yelled back. “Lord Tubbington is not really reliable around tinsel, and I thought I would try to discourage him just in case he ever comes to visit us.”

Santana found the box in question – naturally under all the other boxes – and brought it to the kitchen area.

“Next time we move,” she said, “I veto doing it around Christmas. These are not the sort of boxes I want to be opening around this time of year.”

“Next time Rachel is not going to demand we move out because she cannot keep to her own schedule and not be at home when she says she won’t,” Brittany said very seriously. “So I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

“It’s nice, though,” Santana said. “Our very first Christmas in our first actual place together. Kurt would make that gross ‘look how cute’ face at it if he was here.”

“You have the exactly same face,” Brittany said before quickly kissing Santana’s cheek and running back to the stove. “I’ve compared photographs, and I went to MIT for exactly a year so I should know about things like that.”

Santana didn’t comment, instead starting to unpack the box of Christmas decorations. She was glad Brittany could speak so lightly about the subject; it hadn’t been easy for her to admit that while she liked being viewed as a genius, she didn’t actually truly like anything she was currently doing. She was much happier with her current job, and she’d perfected the deadpan look and talking maths-lese for when someone called her stupid, and most importantly of all, not going to MIT anymore meant she could move to New York.

Things were good. Even though they literally had more tinsel than Santana could hang because their apartment was so incredibly small.

“We could make a pillow of it,” Brittany said as Santana pointed this out. “Wouldn’t it be nice to sleep on top of Christmas?”

It sounded just about the most uncomfortable pillow Santana had ever imagined, but Brittany looked really excited about the idea, and she did like to read up on science a little sometimes since it had turned out to be a self-confidence boost so Santana didn’t know if she’d actually like to do the experiment.

“Or I could leave it in the box and we could put your cat statue in there so that it would be like Lord Tubbington was here?” she suggested.

Brittany flashed her brightest smile at Santana. “That’s an even better idea!”

Santana went to get the cat statue, carefully arranged the tinsel around it and then settled the box on top of a larger box that kind of looked like a coffee table.

The rest of the decoration was quick; there wasn’t much room and they’d already spoken about what they’d do with many of the decorations, so Santana was soon finished.

“Do you need any help here?” she asked, wandering back to the kitchen.

“I have it under control, unless you really want me to think of something for you.” Brittany glanced at her. “Do you? You sometimes chop carrots when you get nervous, I hope you’re not nervous during Christmas.”

Santana laughed. “No, that’s not it. I just thought I should try to get a few pages’ reading in for that exam I’ve got coming up right after the holidays, but if you need me-“

“No,” Brittany said. “Go ahead. I think potatoes are more like science nerds anyway than really tough bad guys who need a lawyer.”

Santana would have felt bad about curling up on the sofa around the decorative turtle pillow Brittany had brought along with her from Cambridge, but there were situations in which the small size of the apartment came in handy and this was one; she could actually see Brittany from where she was sitting.

“It’s good Lord Tubbington is a statue for the holidays,” Brittany said as she continued cooking. “I know he’s very attached to Christmas trees, and I suspect he’d be quite upset to know ours is actually not a tree but a collection of different plastics.”

“Well,” Santana said, looking up from her book, “what he doesn’t know won’t harm him, and I promise not to tell if you don’t.”

“Promise.” Brittany flashed her a smile before dashing to check the mashed potatoes again. “He’s surprisingly sensitive, for a hardened criminal. I think Christmas reminds him of his long-lost children.”

“I’m sure your parents are taking good care of him.”

“Me too,” Brittany said. “But do you think we could Skype him later? Obviously we’ll have to angle it so that he won’t see the tree, but-“

“Of course.” Santana looked at Brittany with as much seriousness as she could muster. It mattered to Brittany, therefore it was important. “We’ll call your parents and ask them to put him on. They said they’d keep their computer on, just in case, remember?”

Brittany smiled before going back to her cooking again. “Yes, I do remember.”

For some time, Santana just read quietly while Brittany stayed in the kitchen. She was at a particularly tricky bit when the sofa under her dipped a little, and right after that she could feel Brittany’s warm weight against her side.

“Food is almost ready,” Brittany said. “Just like ten minutes.”

“I should probably finish this chapter.” Santana tilted her head so that it rested gently against Brittany’s. “Should take less than ten minutes.”

“It can take ten,” Brittany said. “Not fifteen, because I always thought it was an annoying number and the turkey’s going to be dry if it takes fifteen, but ten’s fine. I like Christmas cuddles on the sofa.”

Santana pressed a quick kiss to the tip of her nose before going back to her book. “That makes two of us, Brit-Brit, that makes two of us.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably a good time to remind everyone that the plot of this fic literally is 'cute absolutely plotless Brittana Christmas fluff'. Just saying, you've been warned.

“I’ve never been in a bikini for Christmas before,” Brittany said, posing for the mirror and checking the top was secure in the back.

Santana blinked, just watching her. Some mornings, she still woke up, thinking it had all been an elaborate dream – the proposal, the wedding, the long flight to Europe. It was great, remembering all over again that she was well and truly married to Brittany, that the woman snoring gently next to her was her wife sleeping in because they were on their honeymoon, but Santana couldn’t quite help the excited tug at her heart at the thought that someday, it would just be normal. Someday, it would be just the most natural thing to be married to the love of her life.

She couldn’t wait for that day.

While she waited, though, this was definitely great too.

“Well,” she said, “to be honest, we wouldn’t be in bikinis if the pool didn’t have a glass roof and wasn’t heated. It’s only like sixty degrees outside. If you wanted to go on a beach, you should have picked Hawaii. Or, like, Australia. We’ve had some pretty interesting Christmases, but we’ve never barbequed our Christmas dinner.”

“I’ll pick them some other time,” Brittany said. “Probably not for Christmas, because next Christmas I want to go outside with you and catch snowflakes on our tongues.”

Santana laughed. “That sounds like a plan. We could go to Canada.”

“Or then we could stay in New York and celebrate the fact that we can actually afford a real Christmas tree that Lord Tubbington would approve of and actual Christmas food,” Brittany said. “And presents. We should just save the travel money and buy each other all the presents.”

“Or then we could get each other trips as presents,” Santana said, stretching on the bed. “Small trips someplace domestic and then back. For weekends, or something. I’d like that.”

“You have a lot of last minute calls to work, though,” Brittany said, “and I work most weekends because so many people don’t realise that dancing is an all-day every day kind of activity.”

“Okay, maybe it needs a little more thinking, but it’s not a bad idea, now, is it?”

Brittany pursed her lips. “I’ve always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. I think it has admirable self-confidence to be calling itself grand and not apologising for it, and I’d like to emulate that.”

Santana couldn’t wait for the day she’d got used to Brittany and being married to her, but then again, they’d known for well over ten years and she still got butterflies unexpectedly whenever Brittany said something.

Then again, she didn’t really mind that. Not at all.

She only had to think a little on where she’d take them if she could. “Las Vegas. Don’t you just want to sit down, drink and watch as people lose money all around you for nothing while you always get alcohol in return?”

Brittany tilted her head to the side and seemed to consider it. “If we’d really thought it through, we could have got married in front of an Elvis impersonator. That was my childhood dream.”

“We could always do that for vow renewals,” Santana said. “Or if you really insist, there’s always divorce and instant remarriage. Although that might be a little difficult to explain if anyone found out.”

“Renewals are fine,” Brittany said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I’m starting to like your gift idea. Although I already had plans for next year’s Christmas. I was going to get you-“

“Shhh, I cannot hear you,” Santana said, putting her hands to her ears. “Don’t ruin the surprise, you’re still going to use that gift idea sometime.”

Brittany nodded and Santana took her hands off her ears.

“We should be talking less about what we’re doing next year,” Brittany said, moving to the centre of the bed so that she could lay down next to Santana. “This year’s Christmas hasn’t even properly started. What do you want to do this year?”

Santana smiled at her, reminded herself once again to savour her happiness and sat up. “Well, to start off, I should probably change. We may be in Europe but I’m definitely not going to show up in public wearing pyjamas.”

“They’re very cute pyjamas,” Brittany said.

“They are, but still no. Only you get to see me this undignified.” She made a gesture in the general direction of the small bunny applique Brittany had added to her pyjamas, and Brittany nodded. “And then we could go to the pool and have the first poolside Christmas lunch we’ve ever had, complete with margaritas.” She stopped to think. “And after that we could come back here to check again if sex is better for married people or not.”

“It is,” Brittany said. “We’re married now, and it’s always great for us, so logically it is now better for married people.”

Santana laughed and agreed and, with some effort, forced herself to get off the warm bed that on top of it all had Brittany, and towards the bathroom where she’d left her bikini to dry the previous day.

She wasn’t much of a swimmer – pools were necessary only for the aesthetic, and because it was nice to tip your toes into something every once in a while when you needed a break from sun-tanning – but it was always a delight to watch Brittany, who didn’t really like swimming either but was very fond of pretending to be a fish.

“Well,” Santana said as she sat down at the edge of the pool, her feet dangling in the water, Brittany not far away from her resting her head against her arms which were out of the pool holding her against the side, “this is certainly a Christmas unlike any other we’ve ever had.”

“Yeah,” Brittany said. “I’d say it’s the best Christmas ever but I’ve been thinking that for like six years ever since we accidentally got under the mistletoe and your mum just smiled at us happily when you kissed my cheek.”

Santana smiled at her, reaching out her hand to touch Brittany’s arm. “It’s not like you’ve ever been wrong about that.”

Brittany tilted her head and smiled up at Santana. “That’s true.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anyone even reads fic during Christmas, but anyway. Yay for thematic accuracy, happy holidays!

Santana squared her shoulders, forced herself to take a deep, measured breath as she looked at herself for the last time in the bathroom mirror and then opened the door into the bedroom.

“So, what do you think?”

Brittany looked up, smiled and jumped a little on her seat on the bed as she said, “You look great,” and Santana wasn’t quite sure why she’d been so incredibly afraid of showing the outfit to Brittany in the first place.

“It’s not too much?” she asked. “I mean, I know what sort of outfits people usually use these shoes for,” she raised one of her feet towards Brittany for emphasis, the long black leather boots with a moderate (for her) heel and laced all the way up the front showing clearly from that angle, “and it isn’t for giving presents to their neighbour’s grandchildren.”

Other than the boots (and Santana might have been closer to forty than thirty, even if only barely, but she still had her shoe-related cravings and pride, and neither of those was very excited about what some people thought more age-appropriate footwear), the outfit was far less suggestive. That in itself was a small feat given that Santana hadn’t had to research for long before finding out that every costume company and shop in the whole country apparently thought men dressed up as Santa to distribute presents and women dressed up as Santa to have sex. She was lucky she had a Broadway costume designer on speed dial, though, and after she’d managed to pull his fingers out of his ears and tell him that she didn’t, in fact, want the costume for a role-play, Kurt had really got into it. The skirt reached below her knees, but it was well-cut and actually something Santana might see herself using regularly, and the jacket was as tacky as you could expect from a Santa outfit but somehow the tackiness was endearing instead of annoying. It reminded Santana of when she’d been a kid herself and her father had dressed up as Santa for her.

Brittany jumped off the bed and walked up to her. “No, it’s not. It makes me want to hug you and send you off with a kiss and then wait by the door until you come back so that you can change into your regular clothes and have sex because I really like the fact that my wife is the best neighbour in the whole world.”

Santana laughed, looking down at her shoes. “I’ll just have to trust you on that one, then.”

“You should,” Brittany said cheerfully. “Besides, you’re already trusting me to make the eggnog while you’re gone, that’s nothing compared.”

Santana laughed, putting her hand to Brittany’s waist and pulling her just a little bit closer so that it would be easier to kiss her.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” she said once they pulled away and Santana had figured out a way to drag the bag of presents without causing too much damage or looking too un-Santa-like, “but I’ll knock, I don’t know if these are the types of kids who’d pickpocket Santa and then ask what the key’s for.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Brittany said, waving her goodbye from the door and then closing it as Santana dragged the presents to the next door and rang the doorbell.

—-

“I was all prepared to say that at least they didn’t pull at your beard,” Brittany said as they were drinking eggnog on the sofa some hours later, “but I’m glad it went so well I wouldn’t even need to.”

“They were nice kids,” Santana said. “I mean, they’re going to grow up to be little nuisances à la Rachel Berry, but they were nice kids. I didn’t know there even were kids who could resist the temptation of presents so well that they’d have the attention span to sing Santa a song, let alone a whole concert.”

“Well, Rachel did volunteer for that song charity thing, maybe she’s been brainwashing them.” Brittany’s brow furrowed. “That’s such a weird word. Brains would go all mushy and break up if you put them in the washing machine.”

Santana smiled at her. “If there was someone whose evil plan of world domination would be all about teaching little kids to sing, it would be Berry.”

They sat in silence for a while drinking.

“How nice were they?” Brittany eventually asked.

Santana frowned a little. “What do you mean? They didn’t complain that I didn’t have a beard they could pull at, and the only annoying thing about them was the singing.”

“No,” Brittany said. “Were they so nice that you want some of your own now? Because you do like to reuse clothes and I thought maybe you’d want to use the jacket again. It doesn’t really fit anyone else besides Mother Christmas.”

Santana wanted to laugh, but she knew better than to seem like she might be making fun of Brittany when Brittany asked a serious question. “No. I mean, I might offer next year even if I won’t get asked, but I don’t actually want any of my own.” She took another sip of her eggnog. “Have you changed your mind, is that it?”

To her relief, Brittany shook her head. “I just thought you might have.”

“I haven’t. Kids are great when you can whisk them away from their parents for a day or two to have fun, but after that I get tired.”

“Well,” Brittany said, moving closer to Santana to cuddle up against her side, “you’re excellent at whisking away and having fun.”

Santana rested her head against Brittany’s. “Only because you’re such an inspiration.”

Brittany shook her head a little but she didn’t argue further.

“You don’t mind having Christmas alone at home, though?” Santana asked after a while. It wouldn’t be like Brittany to drop vague hints, but she’d learnt along the years that checking was still the safest option.

“It’s not alone when you’re here, too,” Brittany said. “And no. I liked going to your parents’ last year and having so many people around, but I like this, too.”

“Yeah,” Santana said, pressing a quick kiss to Brittany’s shoulder. “Me too. Just the two of us.”

Brittany’s hand moved to Santana’s thigh and her smile turned mischievous. “Two people has its good sides.”

Santana looked down at the hand, Brittany’s smile catching on to her.

“Yeah, she said. “It does.”


	6. Chapter 6

Santana hadn’t really cared about organising parties ever since she’d realised that she didn’t actually want to get drunk and make out with a football player ever again, and her current predicament was solid evidence that that had been an excellent decision.

There she was, cuddling on the sofa next to her wife, half-heartedly watching a Christmas concert on TV and sipping red wine, her stomach pleasantly full of good food and their opened presents neatly on the armchair to their left. She didn’t know what exactly Kurt and Blaine were doing, but that had to include putting away food, washing dishes and clearing out present wrappings, not to mention having to probably wash their floors because so many people had walked on them with shoes on.

Going to someone else’s Christmas party had been a great idea. Maybe they’d have to sneakily make some other friend of theirs hold one the following year so they could go on with the easy Christmases.

“I think I can hear Kurt swearing because Martin spilled wine on his carpet,” Brittany said as if she’d heard Santana’s thoughts.

Santana turned to her, a quick laugh escaping her lips. “He did? And he didn’t tell Kurt so Kurt could begin to treat it immediately? He’s so dead.”

“I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Brittany said. “You don’t count because you’re not anyone.”

“I’ll try to hold my tongue when Kurt’s all upset about it. You know he will, and he’s going to be at Rachel’s New Year’s party, we’re bound to hear all about it then.”

Brittany nodded.

“Aside from that, though, it was great,” Santana said. “I mean, not that I don’t love having an intimate Christmas with just you, but I do like how easy it is when someone else just does everything and you’ll just have to bring a bottle of wine and a few more gifts than usually.”

“It’s nice with people, too,” Brittany agreed. “And Kurt makes the best turkey stuffing ever.”

“That’s true.” Santana tightened her hold on Brittany’s shoulders, just a little. “But we’re still not joining their artists’ colony, whenever they get that underfoot. I want my retirement to be somewhere where the wine not matching the curtains is not an acceptable source of gossip.”

“I already told Blaine I am allergic to paint if I want to,” Brittany said. “But he said we could always go there for a while if we wanted. I thought I would want to whenever Kurt is cooking.”

Santana thought about it. “That’s true. But not for longer than a week, ever. I’ve met their friends, and if those are the kinds of people they’ll get into it, then I’m going to need a peaceful retreat just to nurse my nerves back to health after the first retreat.”

“Thanksgiving, maybe,” Brittany said. “Plus I know how much you and Blaine like talking about the genocide and not being around anyone who thinks the pilgrims were the best.”

“That’s true.”

They fell silent for a moment, and Santana finished her wine, reaching for the box of chocolates on the coffee table and offering Brittany some.

“We should start thinking about it seriously, though,” she said as she selected one of the mint chocolates. “I mean, financially we could retire if we wanted.”

“But you love your job,” Brittany said around the piece of chocolate before swallowing it.

“I do, but I’d love it more if I could just take up cases I wanted instead of the ones they assign me.” She looked down at the chocolates, not knowing how to say that she knew Brittany didn’t really care about hers, she just did the books for a dance studio because she couldn’t teach dance anymore, at least not professionally, not after her broken leg some years ago. “I mean, don’t you just want to take the parts of your work that you like and concentrate on them for charity maybe, and then spend the rest of the time as you wish? I know you hate getting up so early.”

Brittany bit her lip. “Mary has been dropping hints about the dance group she’s leading that always needs volunteers,” she said. “But it’s after school so it would clash.”

“See?” Santana hoped her smile was convincing. “I mean, I’m not saying we’ll have to retire right at this instant, but we could start planning it.”

Brittany nodded. “I don’t want to found an artists’ colony. I like living less than a block from a metro station.”

“Mmmm, so do I. And I’m not too crazy about having to share space with all of those artists either. And anyway, I just really like this place. We searched for it for over ten years, and I’m not letting it go. They’ll literally pry it out of my cold, dead hands.”

“I like them better when they’re warm,” Brittany said, placing her own hand on top of Santana’s. “My hands always get cold so yours feel extra good.”

Santana smiled, turning her hand around so that she could grasp at Brittany’s hand as well. “I’ll try my best not to die on you, then.”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Brittany said, moving closer. Neither of them was as agile as they’d once been, but Brittany could still tuck her feet under herself without it being unpleasant for her (Santana was only slightly envious; she occasionally checked that she still could, but why would she do it for longer than was needed to prove it to herself when she could sit in a more pleasant position?) and mostly used that skill to cuddle closer whenever they were sitting on the sofa; Santana didn’t mind. “Have another chocolate and go on convincing me how great retirement is.”

“You could stay in bed until I wake up, and we would actually have the time to have a little morning lady time again.” Her smile was way too soft to appear seductive in any way, but she still only needed to trail her fingers up Brittany’s arm for Brittany to shudder in that tell-tale way she had. “It’s been a long while since we’ve been able to do that.”

“Last month,” Brittany said. “But weekdays are nicer because you know everyone else has to go to work, so it doesn’t count.”

“And I could make you breakfast,” Santana said. “You always leave me something when you have to leave earlier, it’s only fair that I’d make something for you, too.”

“Your pancakes are really good,” Brittany agreed. “Definitely worth the twenty years I spent teaching you.”

Santana wanted to quip something, but she couldn’t help the smile.

“Here’s to twenty more years,” she said, pretending to click her empty wine glass against Brittany’s.

“Maybe we can do omelettes next,” Brittany said and Santana pushed her elbow gently against Brittany’s side before simply leaning in for a kiss.

“Maybe,” she said afterwards. “Although if I were you, I’d remember who taught you to use the juice press back when we were sixteen and maybe go easy on the mocking.”

“I remember that,” Brittany said. “Your mouth tasted extra good with the orange. Although it always tastes good anyway.”

Santana laughed, bridging the gap between their lips again. She could still taste a hint of the chocolate in Brittany’s mouth, and that was equally good or even better than orange juice.


	7. Chapter 7

High school parties were not as impressive as she’d thought before she’d decided to organise one, Santana concluded as she looked around in her living room. It was kind of cool that so many people had actually come and her parents had yet to call her that their plans had changed and they were coming back, which inevitably would mean that they’d find out she wasn’t actually having a cheer squad sleep-over at Quinn Fabray’s, so it seemed like everything would go well. Someone had brought alcohol, but there was so little of it that Santana doubted she’d be forcing someone to clear vomit off of the carpet by the end of the night.

But the party was still kind of lame. It didn’t feel like she’d thought it would.

Besides, she couldn’t properly relax and enjoy whatever she had left because she kept looking around like a hawk and making sure no one was breaking anything or stealing stuff. She’d moved most of the valuable and easily broken stuff into the upstairs rooms which she’d locked – she wasn’t an idiot, everyone knew Finn Hudson didn’t need to even take a step in the direction of the dance floor before something went wrong – but there was still a lot of things that could be broken and not replaced without her parents noticing.

Well, at least she now knew what her New Year’s resolution would be. She wouldn’t organise the New Year’s party next year.

“Santana!”

She turned, the retort on her tongue ready to tell Jack Smith’s girlfriend again that she wouldn’t be letting anyone into her parents’ bedroom, and that it was super creepy to want to get it on in your classmate’s house anyway. (Well, she’d done it, but at least she hadn’t been so excited at the prospect that it would be in someone else’s bedroom. That was the creepy part.) Luckily, though, it wasn’t Jack Smith’s girlfriend.

It was Brittany, and Santana sighed of relief.

“Hi,” she said. “I haven’t seen you in a while, I thought you might have left.”

“I was watching the porch light.” Brittany made a gesture towards the area where people were dancing (Santana kind of wanted to die of awkwardness for their dancing related sins, just to not have to look at it anymore), which was nowhere near the porch, but then again, she wouldn’t have expected anything less from Brittany. “The moths told me you might want company.”

“Then they are smarter than I thought they’d be.”

Brittany beamed at her and reached for her hand. “Come dance with me. It looks like no one else here can dance and it’s really embarrassing. Plus I always like dancing with you the best.”

Santana would have argued, but Brittany was right, and anyway the quickening of her heartbeat when Brittany began dancing in front of her was oddly enough reversed by realising that some boys from the football team were looking at them and, going by the hand gestures, were appreciating what they saw.

Having established that, Santana felt quite comfortable forgetting all about their existence and turning to Brittany.

Brittany was a great dancer, and Santana wasn’t bad, and at this point Santana was pretty sure that Brittany had become her best friend, so she didn’t even feel awkward when she realised some time later that she was giggling into Brittany’s shoulder as they were shuffling their feet to the tune of a song that was significantly slower than the previous ones.

“I’d like to walk on the stars, too,” Brittany said. “Although they’re kind of spiky, so maybe it wouldn’t be so nice.”

“They’d be pretty hot, too,” Santana said. “You’d burn your feet.”

“Maybe.” They were just standing in the middle of the dance floor, now, talking while everyone else had gone back to dancing. “Maybe I should just watch them until I become one.”

“You can borrow my star-shaped pillow sometime if you’d like to sleep with one,” Santana said, and Brittany’s face lit up like she was already a star.

“Really? You have one?”

“Yeah, let me just-“

She hated navigating her way away from all the dancing people, but as soon as they cleared the living room, the rest of the house was significantly emptier. Santana was pretty sure she could see a couple making out behind the cupboard upstairs, but she was more concerned with getting into her room with Brittany before anyone would notice and think it was an open invitation to everyone so she didn’t even bother checking if she’d seen correctly.

Brittany practically jumped from excitement as Santana presented her with the pillow, and she spent the next quarter of an hour talking to it in a sweet voice while smoothing over the ruffled fabric. Santana didn’t exactly like the feeling she got from watching Brittany gently caress stuff, though, so she wandered off to the door that gave out to the small balcony she had (you couldn’t even fit a chair in there, but still, a private balcony sounded pretty cool) and opened it.

The air was chilly – it was almost January, after all – but not too bad.

“They really are pretty,” she said, looking up at the stars.

Brittany walked up to her, standing beside her and looking up.

“Yeah,” she said. “They are.”

Santana didn’t know how long they stood there, just quietly watching, but eventually she began feeling a little awkward about it.

“We should probably get downstairs,” she said. “Someone will think we’ve snuck out to make out.”

She was just about to clarify that she didn’t mean with each other, but separately with someone else, but Brittany spoke first.

“We could.”

“What?”

“Have come here to make out. The stars are pretty and so are you, and you’re my best friend and I’m pretty sure your mouth doesn’t taste like burgers. The beef one is okay but the chicken burger breath kind of makes me sick.”

Santana looked down at Brittany’s lips (they looked nice and soft and a lot more kissable than the last lips she’d kissed) and then back up as soon as she realised what she was doing.

“Okay,” she said. “But when we go downstairs, let’s not tell anyone. I don’t want to-“

“The stars will tell each other,” Brittany said. “But they only speak Arabic so that’s okay because no one in our school understands it.”

She reached for Santana’s hand, and Santana grasped hers back as they shuffled closer until their bodies were touching.

It was just a quick, innocent kiss, but it made Santana’s heart race like it usually only did during cheer practice.

“That was nice,” she said once it was over, trying to swallow down her nervousness.

“It was,” Brittany said, throwing the star pillow to Santana’s bed. “Do you want to do it again?”

“Yes,” Santana said before she could even think about it.

Their second kiss was longer, and Santana even dared to put her hands on Brittany’s waist instead of letting them hang limply on her sides.

“I like kissing you a lot more than I like kissing Puck,” Brittany said once they pulled apart again.

“That’s because Puck doesn’t shower after football practice.”

“Maybe. Can we kiss again?”

Santana didn’t so much answer as she moved her head so that her lips found Brittany’s again. It wasn’t their last kiss of the night, and somewhere around the point where Santana stopped counting, it passed through her mind that she wouldn’t mind doing it again some other time. For some reason, she linked the thought in her head to walking down the hallway with their pinkies linked and going to Breadstix to eat the complimentary breadsticks for hours, but then Brittany sucked on her lower lip a little and Santana stopped being able to think about anything but kissing Brittany until Brittany pulled away for a moment to say she thought she’d seen a shooting star.

When Santana thought back to it later, she vaguely remembered wishing it could last forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand it's done. Thank you to everyone who read it, sorry I couldn't quite manage to keep up with the fic time and make this part a New Year's gift.


End file.
